How To Get Information For Next To Nothing

A White Paper By B2B International Market Research

By Paul Hague and Conor Wilcock

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Desk research is the collection of secondary data

Why Reinvent The Wheel?

• Often, it is quite difficult to locate relevant information in exactly the way that we need or want it

• Information available in the public domain can be extremely useful as it has been subject to scrutiny; the researcher may be able therefore to judge its accuracy

Sources Used In Desk Research

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Sources of Sources & Industry Experts

• General guides to sources of information are useful to desk researchers, such as books, websites, directories and CDs. These include:

– How To Find Information – Business: A Guide to Searching in Published Sources

– Croner’s A-Z Business Information Sources (www.croner.cch.co.uk)

– European Directory of Marketing Information Sources

– Directory of International Sources of Business Information

• Often, interviewing industry experts can be a reliable channel to sources of information; sources themselves can be used to identify contacts for such a purpose

• The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Factbook (www.cia.gov/ciapublications/factbook/) provides statistics on every country in the world, including demographics, economic summaries and information on transportation & government

• Encyclopaedias such as Encyclopaedia Britannica (www.britannica.com) are useful storehouses of information

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The Internet

• Due to the constant evolution of the Internet, the problem for researchers is finding information, rather than the amount of information available. Despite the advances in search engine intelligence, it is often difficult to sift through vast amounts of information to find the most relevant and reliable source

• Common problems with online desk research include:

– Search strings– Semantics

• Often, the answer to the specific question a researcher may be asking will not obtainable. There is usually data, however, that can lead in a series of logical steps to the desired outcome

• Basic search string tips include using quotation marks to use specific search terms, and restricting search results by file type, e.g. filetype:pdf (which is particularly useful for finding financial reports and industry essays):

Market researchers can use the Internet for desk research by visiting websites with publicly available information, or online communities and

social media

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Online databases and industry reports

Market & Company Data

• Detailed reports for almost every industry you can think of are available, but most come at a price (a report could cost anything between £500 and £5,000)

• www.marketresearch.com is a gateway to over 300,000 reports from 700 research agencies

• Obtaining company data is a central part of desk research, especially in cases where competitive intelligence or market assessment information is required

• Companies House (link), Hoovers, a subsidiary of Dun & Bradstreet (link), and the US Securities & Exchange Commission (link) are good starting points for basic company details

• Data that are typically available free of charge include company address, date of incorporation, company type, revenue and number of employees

Company data

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Government Statistics

Government & Industry Sources

• Government data is as “official” as a researcher is likely to encounter during desk research, though information should be looked upon with the same scrutiny as from other sources

• Useful sites include The National Statistics Website (UK) (link), Department of Commerce (USA) (link), Eurostat (EU) (link), and OECD (International) (link)

• Most industries have a central organisation, which acts as a source for trade publications, reports etc.

• The Directory of British Associations is a helpful route to specific journals and other sources of information

Trade & Industry Bodies

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The Press

General Directories & The Press

• Quality newspapers, such as The Times, The Independent, The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Telegraph etc. are major references sources

• In addition to the general and business press, most trades have official journals

• Directories are a fundamental tool for market researchers. They are usually the first port of call for sample building and also provide company details

• In the UK, the Yellow Pages is the most comprehensive database of SME’s (www.yell.co.uk)

• Similar directories for other countries include Gelbe Seiten (Germany), Gouden Gids (Netherlands), Pagine Giallie (Italy) and Paginas Amarillas (Spain)

General Directories

Applications Of Desk Research

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The Marketing Environment

What Can Desk Research Be Used For?

• Businesses constantly look to better understand the markets in which they operate and those into which they are considering expanding

• Exploratory research such as this can not be done without desk research (be it as due diligence or otherwise) though primary research is often used to supplement the secondary work

• Market size estimates are hard to come by, but extensive desk research using a variety of methods can lead to reasonable approximations about the size of almost any market

• Market sizing can be researched using the top-down (by calculating the size of a wider market which is the target market) or bottom-up (calculating the size of sub-segments within the target market) approaches

Market Structure & Size

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What Can Desk Research Be Used For?

Suppliers & Brands

• This can be an appendage to market structure and assessment analysis, or an entity unto itself

• Companies often seek consumer attitudes and competitive satisfaction, which can usually be obtained using primary research, though existing detailed reports may hold relevant information

Distribution & Retailing

• A key need for businesses is to understand increasingly-complex routes to market

• Distributors are playing a more important role in supplying goods and services to the end customer

Geodemographics

• This is the “classification of small areas according to the characteristics of their residents” (Leventhal, 1990)

• Census data is usually the most useful for researchers seeking geodemographics

• In market research, it is used for customer profiling, market assessment and marketing planning

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Products

What Can Desk Research Be Used For?

• Product literature is used in pricing studies

• Here, desk research often acts as a prelude to primary data collection and/or mystery shopping

• Consumer reaction to new products cannot easily be measured through desk research, though the development of online communities as a hub for product reviews has widened the scope of product-related desk research

• Information on overseas markets is readily available online and offline

• Problems, however, include inconsistency and incomparability of data; in such cases, multinational data sources are the most useful, e.g. Eurostat

International Marketing

Best Practices & Limitations

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Best Practices For Desk Research

• Good desk research is always thoroughly planned, whether online or offline sources are to be used

• A timetable should also be set: how long should you spend on the research? Researchers should remember the law of diminishing returns and know when the benefits of continuing are minimal

• Sources, data and other information obtained through desk research should always be recorded. This is crucial in cases where information is revisted, and will save valuable time in similar or repeat projects

• Data should always be evaluated. Published information is not necessarily trustworthy and even the most “official” of information should not be taken entirely at face value. The experienced desk researcher is adept at questioning and cross-checking data

• Validation requires the understanding that all secondary data was spawned from primary research. Going back to the original source and evaluating the methods used to obtain the data will lead to more reliable and valid conclusions

Plan

Record

Evaluate

Information available

Information needed

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As rewarding as desk research can be, it does have its limits: in many cases, a combination

of primary and secondary research will produce the most comprehensive and reliable

results

Desk research is often unpredictable – researchers often struggle with “blank sheet

syndrome” at the beginning. There is no certainty of what desk research may yield and

what gaps will remain

Some information is simply not available through secondary research. For example, data on attitudes can only truly be obtained

through primary research methods

The Limits Of Desk Research

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Thank You For Reading

Thank you for reading our White Paper on Scoping Market Research Projects.

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